Category: Bible Reading & Meditation

“This people pays Me lip service but their heart is far from Me. Empty is the reverence they do Me because they teach as dogmas mere human precepts.” –Mark 7:6-7; Isaiah 29:13 Mass Readings: February 6 First: 1 Kings 8:22-23,27-30; Resp: Psalm 84:3-5,10-11; Gospel: Mark 7:1-13 Listen to the Mass Readings There are divine traditions – the magisterial teachings of the Church and the Bible. These divine traditions are the truth (see 2 Thes 2:15). They cannot be changed. We must conform our lives to these divine traditions. On Judgment Day, we will be judged according to these divine traditions....

“I shall not see happiness again.” –Job 7:7 How many of you can identify with Job in his hopeless misery? (Jb 7:3) Your situation is so bad that you can say: “I loathe my life. I will give myself up to complaint; I will speak from the bitterness of my soul” (Jb 10:1). “I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights…I am filled with restlessness until the dawn…My days…come to an end without hope…I shall not see happiness again” (Jb 7:3, 4, 6, 7). God’s plan is not to spare us from difficult times; His plan is to...

Mary and Joseph “came to offer in sacrifice ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.’ ” –Luke 2:24 In presenting their children to the Lord, Jewish parents made a small sacrifice in place of sacrificing their children. However, in Jesus’ Presentation, a small sacrifice did not replace a great sacrifice; rather, it prefigured Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on Calvary. Therefore, Jesus’ Presentation is not a calling to less sacrifice but to sharing in Jesus’ perfect sacrifice. Today, we are called to be like Mary and open our hearts to be pierced with a sword of suffering (Lk 2:35). We are...